Posted on 09/10/2014 1:44:18 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
Next week’s referendum on Scottish independence has largely flown under the radar screen here in the United States. The cable news networks have devoted little attention so far to the issue, as the Isil threat in the Middle East continues to dominate international coverage. There has been no polling conducted on the Scottish question in the US, and it is doubtful that many Americans outside of the Washington policy bubble or the financial milieu of New York are particularly exercised by the outcome of a vote taking place over 3,000 miles away.
They should be concerned, however. What happens in Scotland will reverberate on this side of the Atlantic, and not for the better. Here are five reasons why Americans should be nervous about the outcome of next week’s vote if Scotland votes for independence.
1. The Special Relationship will be undercut.
The United Kingdom is far and away America’s biggest and most important ally. Anything that weakens Britain, and chips away at the Special Relationship, is a big negative for the United States. This fear has been amply expressed by dozens of members of the United States Congress, both Republican and Democrat, who are backing a resolution in the House of Representatives declaring that a “united, secure, and prosperous United Kingdom” is vital to US interests.
The Special Relationship is too powerful a partnership to be set adrift by a Scottish vote for independence...
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
Scotland will want foreign aid
Assuming a “yes” vote, the remaining UK government will be much, much more conservative after an election without Scotland. Maybe even a UKIP government.
Don’t think you have presented an argument at all, just an empty emotional plea.
I guess I better go learning German now. As the English-speaking world gets embroiled in self destruction, session ism, wars, and putting against one another, what happens next is that Germany will become the undisputed leader from the West.
(disclaimer: I have no ties with Scitland in family at all, but worked for a guy who is a scot, and what he told me about his beliefs etc would make me believe what the American conservative sympathisers of Scottish session ism on this board are engaging in wishful thinking and got the politics wrong by 250 years)
That’s utter crap.
Most Scots are pro-American and have no problem with Israel. Yes, there is a leftist minority vocal against Israel, but they don’t represent the Scottish people.
And to suggest we are anti-American is just nonsense. We are more pro-American than the English, and they are pretty friendly to you overall.
The Hanoverians WERE Stuarts.
George I was the grandson of Princess Elizabeth Stuart, the daughter of James VI/I, she married the Hanoverian king.
Bu the Scots don’t need self-rule, as we already have it, with a Scottish Parliament at Edinburgh, and representation at Westminster. NI and Wales have assemblies and England dosent have a parliament of its own.
And we Scots JOINED the UK in 1707. That’s a huge point, we were not pressganged or conquered into it.
Its Britains oil. After all, it was British money, over 90% NOT Scottish, that drew it up from the ground and has done so since 1975.
And whats this dreck about terrorists?.
Oh, and England and the UK or Great Britain are not the same thing. That’s quite important.
We aren’t seeking freedom, we Scots ARE free!.
We JOINED the UK in 1707. We are free to stay as long as we want or leave. England never conquered Scotland (nor did anyone else, an amazing record), we have always been a free nation.
And again, Britain/GB/UK and England are not the same thing. Britain/GB/UK equally includes Scotland.
Unfortunately the scotsman, facts don’t matter here, only feelings. “ I have my great-great-great grandfather from SCOTLAND! Plus I watched Bravwheart so my guy feeling must be true!”
“And we Scots JOINED the UK in 1707. That’s a huge point, we were not pressganged or conquered into it.”
So? Why should voters 300 years ago tell voters now what to do? Self determination means just that, self, not someone 300 years ago. If the Scots don’t want to be part of the UK anymore then they have the right to vote on it.
Don’t minimize our relationship with Australia; they’re Americans with warm Christmases, while English people are much more like their German cousins (though their beer isn’t as good).
BTW, I think you have that other point wrong: Americans saved Britain in two World Wars.
Was the Suez stab in the back as bad as the events leading up to 1812?
This article from the Claremont Institute explains perfectly why “we like self determination” to the nth degree is a dumb idea, justified from their own nation’s founding era. And it was written back in the1780s!
It applies equally to modern Britain as the US:
http://www.claremont.org/basicpage/sewards-folly-or-farsightedness/#.VBDEztkazCQ
“During the crisis of the 1780s, some Americans went so far as to question the viability of a geographically expansive Union. They pointed to the difficulty of governing such a massive territory without a despotic central government, and to the distinct interests that seemed to mark particular sections. Some in the West explored the idea of reaching an arrangement with Spain to separate from the United States. Others entertained the possibility of allowing three or four separate confederacies to emerge. Because each would have a republican form of government, they presumably could inhabit peacefully the same geopolitical space and trade to their mutual advantage. (It is difficult to find any important American political figure who explicitly made this case, but had efforts at constitutional reform failed, this might well have been the default outcome.)
The Constitution of 1787 offered an alternative—a large, commercial and federal republic—based on the assumption that nature and the American experiment in self-government could be aligned perfectly. Anything less would be disastrous. As Publius put it:
This country and this people seem to have been made for each other, and it appears as if it was the design of Providence, that an inheritance so proper and convenient for a band of brethren, united to each other by the strongest ties, should never be split into a number of unsocial, jealous, and alien sovereignties.
The relations among these independent sovereignties, Publius insisted, would not be characterized by peace and commerce but by unceasing conflicts of interests and war. The struggle to control an unnaturally divided geopolitical space would override the republican instincts of the people. North America would be racked with wars, just as Europe had been for centuries.
- See more at: http://www.claremont.org/basicpage/sewards-folly-or-farsightedness/#.VBDEztkazCQ";
It will finish off the UK, and end the vanishing power of Britain.
Expect similar moves here in the south west as the invaders push to consolidate their gains.
Exactly...but didn’t he, Joe something or other, discount the yellow cake info and show Brit intelligence to be faulty. Didn’t he perpetuate the “Bush lied about the yellow cake” memo?
I’m not expert on this but while I think Brit intell is helping us, I think they might have taken a hit on this...if you believe Plame’s husband...
Which I don’t.....
This I know....
But didn’t the famous Wallace, movie not withstanding, fight for independence? How about Robt the Bruce at the Battle of Bannockburn?
I know that was back at the end of the thirteenth, beginning of the fourteenth centuries...kind of a long time ago.
As far back as the Irish seeking independence?
And I know the low landers invariably continued to screw over the Highlanders throughout Scottish history...I get it.
1. The Special Relationship will be undercut. The United Kingdom is far and away America’s biggest and most important ally. Not necessarily. Japan is America's biggest trading partner outside North America. They may not contribute a lot of men and military equipment to Allied efforts, but they contribute the most money. By far.
2. Britain’s nuclear deterrent will have to be moved.
Not necessarily. Once Scotland comes to their senses, it is obvious that the will owe England a lot of money for the break-up. There is no less painless way to pay some of it back than by leasing bases.
3. The coalition against Isil will be weakened
See item #2. The UK contribution to the alliance is about 5% of the men and material. The Scottish contribution to the UK is maybe 8% or 9%, IOW not even 1% of the total men and material. And that assumes that Scotland will go full neutral.
4. US markets will take a hit.
Maybe, short-term. Long-term, really how important is Scotland to world markets? Maybe as important as the Republic of Ireland? However, more important than Wales or Portugal.
5. An independent Scotland will be an insignificant ally to the U.S.
And it is a significant ally now? See item #3.
FWIW, I am not cheering for a separation from the United Kingdom. I hope it fails, if only because Scotland is likely to be a basket case only slightly less than a Greece or a Portugal.
But if it passes, the sky will not have fallen any more than the separation of the Irish Republic from the UK in the previous century.
Agree or disagree, it is not the job of those of us on this side of the Atlantic to tell our friends on the other side what to do.
‘BTW, I think you have that other point wrong: Americans saved Britain in two World Wars.’
Yawn. Get back to me with some real history and we’ll chat.
And 1812?. BOTH sides were spoiling for a fight.
Honestly, I cant disagree with anything you said.
As for me, I am a staunch NO voter. I think breaking up the UK is idiocy and the like one of the English freepers, I am depressed and astounded at how such a hollow campaign as the YES one, has managed to con so many people, when the Scots usually strongly reject the nationalist cause at general elections.
Christopher Hitchens ( R.I.P.) did a series of columns on this which showed that Joe Wilson ( Plames husband ) lied about this and a few other things as well. Case Closed Plame
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